Arnas, Jenkins, Naughton, Esparza & More Lead 92nd Street Y's 2010 Lyrics & Lyricists

The 92nd Street Y has announced casting for the 2010 season of Lyrics & Lyricists. Lucie Arnaz, Debby Boone, Capathia Jenkins, James Naughton and Raúl Esparza are among the performers who will present the music of the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, Johnny Burke and Hoagy Carmichael. The season also includes a night of songs made famous by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and one devoted to the art of the satirical song, featuring works by Tom Lehrer, "Yip" Harburg, Stephen Sondheim and others. The season is curated by series artistic director Deborah Grace Winer, and a line-up of guest artistic directors - Lucie Arnaz, Daryl Sherman, Rob Fisher, and Ted Sperling.

L&L shows are Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 and 8 pm, and Monday at 2 and 8 pm. Individual tickets are $62 and $52; subscriptions to the five-concert series running from January to June are $270 and $225. The 92nd Street Y will also offer an "under-35" ticket price for the Saturday and Sunday evening performances, with $25 individual tickets and $100 season subscriptions. Call 212-415-5500 or go to www.92Y.org/Lyrics for more information.

Lyrics & Lyricists is produced by the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts under Director Hanna Arie-Gaifman.

"We're especially excited about this season," says Winer, "because not only are we celebrating undersung icons like Johnny Burke and Hoagy Carmichael; but the thematic shows-Desi Arnaz and the Latin craze, Tom Lehrer and satiric comedy and the Astaire-Rogers candy store of standards-show us there are so many fresh, interesting, relevant and fun lenses through which to explore the American Songbook and appreciate why these great songs are constantly new."

Lyrics & Lyricists: 2010 Season

January 9, 10, 11
BABALU: THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK GOES LATIN - FEATURING THE MUSIC OF THE Desi Arnaz ORCHESTRA
Lucie Arnaz, Artistic Director, Host, Vocals
Ron Abel, Music Director, Piano
Ramon Del Barrio, Stage Director
Songwriters from Irving Berlin to Cole Porter, Broadway and Hollywood to nightclubs and Midwestern dance halls - America had a decades-long bout with Latin Fever, popularized by bandleaders like Desi Arnaz. Lucie Arnaz, with a Latin big band, celebrates the "Latin invasion" of the '30s, '40s and '50s through her father's original orchestra charts. These arrangements have been unheard for decades, stored in the Library of Congress-until now, when they re-emerge on the 92Y stage.

Cast (additional artists TBA):

Lucie Arnaz, vocals
Actress/singer Arnaz began her career on the TV shows The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, appearing with her legendary mother, Lucille Ball. She won an Emmy Award as the executive producer of the documentary film Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie. As a stage actress she has appeared in London's West End and Chicago, as well as on Broadway, where her credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Lost in Yonkers and They're Playing our Song.

Raúl Esparza, vocals
Esparza's Broadway credits include Speed-the-Plow, The Homecoming, Company, and Taboo, in Tony nominated roles for all.

Valarie Pettiford, vocals
Pettiford starred in the chorus of the film The Wiz at age 14. She was nominated for a Tony from her work in the hit show Fosse and had a critically-acclaimed run in the musical Chicago in London opposite Chita Rivera.

Desi Arnaz, Jr., special guest
Actor and drummer Arnaz, Jr. played his father in the film The Mambo Kings as well as in an episode of Saturday Night Live co-hosted with Desi, Sr. He has numerous TV and film roles to his credit, and also served as executive producer on 2001's I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special. His public life began with his appearance as a baby on the first issue of TV Guide in April, 1953.

Kristine Bendul, dancer
Bendul's Broadway credits include Movin' Out, Man of La Mancha, Swing and On the Town. She is part of Twyla Tharp's new Sinatra project Come Fly With Me.

Mark Stuart Eckstein, dancer
Eckstein is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Mark Stuart Dance Theatre, which has appeared at New York City Center and the Minskoff Theatre.

February 20, 21, 22
MISTY: Johnny Burke AFTER HOURS
DARYL SHERMAN, Artistic Director, Host, Piano, Vocals
Caitlin Carter, Stage Director
Jazz singer/pianist Daryl SHerman Offers an intimate, saloon-style tribute to Johnny Burke. The reigning lyricist of Paramount Pictures, Burke's songs, including "Misty," "Here's that Rainy Day," "Swinging on a Star," "What's New?" and "Pennies From Heaven," seduced singers from Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday.

Cast (additional artists TBA):

Eric Comstock, piano & vocals
Pianist/vocalist/arranger/writer Comstock has performed tributes to Jule Styne and Billy Strayhorn, and co-created the critically acclaimed shows Our Sinatra, Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook and Singing Astaire. He has also published articles on E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, Cole Porter, Freddy Cole and Bobby Short.

Barbara Fasano, vocals
Award-winning vocalist Fasano made her Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Harold Arlen Centennial Concert, and collaborated with jazz pianist John Di Martino on the acclaimed Arlen CD collection Written in the Stars. She has appeared in venues such as Rose Hall, The Allen Room, and Birdland.

Jeff Harnar, vocals
Harnar brought his show The 1959 Broadway Songbook to the L&L stage in 2008. He has made numerous appearances at Carnegie Hall, including both Noël Coward and Cole Porter's centennial celebrations, his own solo concert at Weill RecitAl Hall and as Michael Feinstein's special guest at Zankel Hall for a Jule Styne tribute.

Daryl Sherman, piano & vocals
The 2009 MAC Award winner for Best Jazz Singer/Instrumentalist, Sherman is equally at home in the worlds of jazz and cabaret, and has performed at the Algonquin's Oak Room, Dizzy's Coca Cola, Iridium Jazz Club and Feinstein's At The Regency. Her latest CD is Johnny Mercer: Centennial Tribute.

March 20, 21, 22
FRED & GINGER IN SO MANY WORDS: THE ASTAIRE-ROGERS SONGBOOK
DEBORAH GRACE WINER, Artistic Director, Host
John Oddo, Music Director
Mark Waldrop, Stage Director
Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, George Gershwin and many others wrote songs for the movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, making Fred and Ginger responsible for a sizable chunk of the American Songbook. Deborah Grace Winer salutes this lasting legacy.

Cast (additional artists TBA):

Debby Boone, vocals
Boone won the Grammy^TM Award for Best New Artist in 1977 when "You Light Up My Life" became an overnight hit and then sold over four million copies. Since then, she has won two additional Grammy Awards and has received seven Grammy nominations. Her Broadway credits include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Grease; she also earned a Drama Desk nomination for her role as Maria in Lincoln Center's 30th-anniversary production of The Sound of Music. She appears in concert all over the country, and club dates include New York's Feinstein's at the Regency.

James Naughton, vocals
Naughton has won critical acclaim in dramas, comedies and musicals. He is a two-time Tony Award winner as Best Actor in a Musical for Chicago and City of Angels, for which he also won a Drama Desk Award. His solo concert/cabaret act, James Naughton Live, at the Manhattan Theater Club, and his recent one man show, Street of Dreams, have also earned critical acclaim.

Billy Stritch, vocals
Grammy^TM Award-winning jazz singer, composer, arranger, vocalist and jazz pianist Stritch was the artistic director for last season's L&L show devoted to Mel Tormé. He has done vocal and music arrangements for Liza Minelli's Liza's at the Palace and Minelli on Minelli concerts, and appeared on Boradway in 42nd Street.

Karen Ziemba, vocals
Ziemba won the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle Awards for her performance in the hit musical Contact at Lincoln Center. She recently received her fourth Tony nomination starring in Kander and Ebb's Curtains, has also appeared on Broadway in Chicago and A Chorus Line, starred in City Center Encores! productions of Pajama Game and Bye, Bye Birdie, and can be seen on PBS broadcasts such as Broadway: The Leading Ladies and In Performance at the White House,

May 8, 9, 10
POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK: THE ART OF THE SATIRIC COMEDY SONG
Rob Fisher, Artistic Director
Sheldon Harnick, Host
Rob Fisher heads up a witty, wicked salute to Tom Lehrer and the lineage of lyricists-from W.S. Gilbert and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg to Sheldon Harnick and Stephen Sondheim-who savor and serve up the follies of our imperfect world.

Cast TBA

June 5, 6, 7
IN THE COOL, COOL, COOL OF THE EVENING: THE STARDUST OF Hoagy Carmichael
Ted Sperling, Artistic Director, Host
Jeffrey Klitz, Music Director, Piano
Jazzman Hoagy Carmichael gave us some of America's most-recorded songs. In L&L's first-ever Carmichael show, Ted Sperling takes us back to the jazz clubs, movies and radio waves where hits like "Stardust," "Georgia on My Mind" and "Lazy River" were first heard from coast to coast.

Cast (additional artists TBA)

Laura Marie Duncan, vocals
Duncan's Broadway credits include South Pacific, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Full Monty.

Capathia Jenkins, vocals
Jenkins has appeared on Broadway in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, Caroline, or Change, The Look of Love and The Civil War. She garnered a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance for (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story.

Clarke Thorell, vocals
Thorell's Broadway credits include Hairspray, Titanic and The Who's Tommy.

Long one of the 92nd Street Y's most popular programs, the American Songbook series Lyrics & Lyricists was launched in 1970 when longtime Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (The Wizard of Oz) took to the stage to talk about the then unusual topic of songwriting. Over the years the series has featured every great Broadway and Hollywood lyricist including Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, and Alan Jay Lerner. In 1978, Lyrics & Lyricists began celebrating composers as well as lyricists and, in 1982, the series evolved from first-person histories of the American musical theatre to narrated musical revues. In 2004, the 92nd Street Y reinvented the format yet again when it asked several accomplished champions of the repertoire - artists like John Pizzarelli, Andrea Marcovicci, Rob Fisher, Sheldon Harnick, Robert Kimball and Ted Sperling - to present original programs in the Lyrics & Lyricists tradition: seamless mixtures of information and entertainment with a particular focus on lyrics. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/Lyrics.

The Lyrics & Lyricists series is partially underwritten by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation. The performances of Lyrics & Lyricists' "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening: The Stardust of Hoagy Carmichael" are underwritten by Gilda and Henry Block and Kenneth Kolker. The March 22 evening performance of "Fred and Ginger in So Many Words: The Astaire-Rogers Songbook" is underwritten by The Henry Nias Foundation, courtesy of Dr. Stanley Edelman.

Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds - about 300,000 people each year.

Since launching its concert series in 1934, what is now the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts has presented acclaimed classical musicians and exciting newcomers. The Center is also home to 92Y's legendary American songbook series, Lyrics & Lyricists, and to 92Y's summer Jazz in July festival, with artistic director Bill Charlap. The Tisch Center's literary program, the Unterberg Poetry Center, presents the country's oldest and arguably most illustrious reading series as well as an extensive writing program that gives working adults access to teachers who are published authors - a rarity outside M.F.A. programs. The 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts is endowed through the generosity of the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch family.

For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.